The first time I saw you, you were wearing a high school science olympiad tshirt. Being a nervous first year desperate to find conversation topics, I was glad I knew we had something in common. The 40 minute discussion that followed was the beginning of a friendship that I really cherished. I realized that first night that you were a lot smarter than I could ever hope to be, and from then on I looked up to you. I hope you knew how much. When we went to those first college bowl meetings together, you got so many more questions than I did. But you always strove to make me feel good about myself - I'm sorry you had to spend a lot of those walks back convincing me I wasn't an idiot. You came to almost every single one of my concerts. And even though you hated a lot of that modern crap we had to play you always met me back at that reception and smiled and told me how good of a job we did. It's just rare that you find someone who is both as brilliant and talented as you are, and as warm and positive.

I'm sorry that we didn't hang out more this year. I was always so happy when we saw each other across campus, and jogged over to each other to catch up. There were so many failed coffee dates and dinner plans. We were both busy, but I wish I had made more time. I'm not going to let moving off of campus get in the way of spending time with the people I care about anymore. And I hope that I can be the person that you always insisted that I was. I hope I can find half the passion that you had. I miss & love you.